


"Tall Tales" as if Sabriel and Destiel Were Canon

by Dylan Mischa Letacis (stereotypicalunicorn)



Series: "Supernatural" as if Sabriel and Destiel Were Canon [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe- Canon, Angel Castiel, Angel Gabriel, Angst, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Characters, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Sam Winchester, Boys In Love, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester in Love, Character Study, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Destiel Fanfic, Destiel Subtext, Destiel Subtext-freeform, Destiel-Freeform, Developing Castiel/Dean Winchester, Developing Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Episode Related, Episode Spoilers, Episode: s02e15 Tall Tales, Everyone Is Gay, F/M, Falling In Love, Fanfiction, Flashback, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gabriel Loves Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester in Love, Gen, Humor, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Multi, Other, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Pansexual Castiel, Pansexual Character, Plot, Polysexual Character, Polysexual Characters, Polysexual Gabriel, Polysexual male character, Romance, Sabriel - Freeform, Sabriel Subtext, Sabriel fanfic, Sam Winchester Loves Gabriel, Season 2, Sexual Tension, Side Story, Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester, Slow Build Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Spoilers, Subtext, Supernatural as if Destiel and Sabriel were real, Tall Tales, bisexual brothers, duh - Freeform, episode 15, expanding on subtext, pansexual male character, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereotypicalunicorn/pseuds/Dylan%20Mischa%20Letacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean investigate a mysterious death at a university, and meet a charming janitor during the case that Sam can't help but take an interest in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Professor

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This fic and this series have now been abandoned for copyright reasons. They will never be finished. 
> 
> First of all, big shoutout to my wonderful beta, Lizzie (@Dragones), who is probably the reason this fic is at all enjoyable and well written. Thanks for being so helpful and willing to spend your time to help me out!
> 
> Second of all, thanks to YOU for reading this. I know it's been forever since I've published anything in this series, so thank you for being patient. I applaud you. Your feedback is really what makes my morning email checks amazing.
> 
> And now, to the prologue! Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited on January 11 2017 for minor grammatical errors.

_A man trudges through a dark winter night, the scarf around his neck doing little to ward out the chill. His shoulder aches, carrying the weight of his briefcase, but his destination is near. His graying hair has been matted down by the moisture on the wind, and he frowns at the thought, the lines of his face deepening. He approaches a large brick building, but stops abruptly at a sight that catches his attention. A girl, a brunette in a cream colored dress, stands next to the steps, one high-heel-clad foot propped up on the low stone wall that guards a sloped courtyard as she adjusts the strap of her shoe. This is not a night nor the time of night for a young lady to be out alone. The man steps towards her, pondering his next move. He can’t help but be drawn to her thighs, exposed under the hem of her dress. He forces himself to take a step back, attempting to blink away the image. “Excuse me,” he begins. The other whips around to face him, her curls flying off her shoulder. She’s attractive in an innocent way, all rounded shapes, doe eyes, and innocent lips. A smile graces her face as she takes in the man, straightening from her task. “Are you lost?” the man asks her._

_“No,” she replies with a smile, her leg still propped up on the wall. “I’ve been waiting for you, professor.” She slides her foot to the ground and stands on both feet. She steps towards him, her hands folded behind her back._

_“Ha!” the man laughs. “Uh… are you in one of my classes?” he asks, eyes flicking over the length of the brunette’s body._

_“Don’t you remember me?” she asks with an expectant expression._

_“We-ell…” he starts with a laugh. “Eh, they’re big classes. Anyway, my office hours are Tuesday and Thursday mornings.” He ends the conversation there and begins to climb the long flight of stairs up to the building._

_“Really? I was hoping I could see you now .” She bites her lip and shifts her weight._

_The man takes a step back down the stairs. “Um…” he juts his bottom lip out as he considers. Then, he smiles. “Well, since you asked so nicely- come on.” The girl grins and walks with him up the stairs._

_They reach the top of the steps. The man holds open the door of the building. She flashes him a bright smile and he smiles in return._

_Within the building, they ascend another flight of stairs to find a hallway. “Just- em- this way,” the man murmurs, letting out a brief smile before passing in front of his companion to approach the door at the right end of the hallway. He slips his key into the lock, twists the knob, and pulls the door open. The woman passes through the doorway and he follows her. His eyes rest on the pale skin of her thighs, just a shade lighter than her dress._

_The girl stands in the man’s office as he passes by her to stand beside his desk. She picks up a book from the table entitled_ Modern Morality: Examining Societal Views & Belief Systems. _The book is written by Arthur Cox. She turns the book over to reveal a black and white photo on the back cover of a young man smiling at the camera. She runs two fingers over his face. The professor slips his scarf off in the heat of his stuffy office. “Such a handsome photo,” the young woman gushes with a smile._

_He laughs. “That old thing… so, what can I do for you?” he asks, hoping he comes across as modest as he hangs up his coat on a rack in the corner. “How’s the Anscombe paper coming?”_

_“Uh, professor, I-” the young woman pauses and laughs, eyes downcast. “Uh…”_

_The man glances at the clock on his desk, impatient, then turns away to crack open a window behind him._

_“I have a confession to make,” the brunette says, still with a sweet smile and innocent yet mischievous smile._

_“Oh? What’s that?” the professor asks, turning to face her._

_“I’m not really one of your students.”_

_“Really? Then why are you here?”. He places his hands on his hips in an attempt to appear annoyed, although he still wears a light smile._

_The young woman doesn’t speak, just smiles. The professor stares back at her for a moment. Then, his gaze travels up and down, lingering on her waist, hips, and thighs. She closes her mouth and her smile vanishes. “Maybe I should just go,” she says, turning to leave._

_“Wait,” the professor says, finally relenting. The brunette stops. She turns her head to look at him. “I get it,” the man continues, walking around his desk to stand in front of it. “I understand how you’re feeling, and it’s only natural.” The girl turns around to face him fully. “You are young and wide-eyed-” The girl's lips quirk, then she looks away. “-and I’m somewhat of a celebrity around here.” She looks up and smiles at that. The man crowds closer to her and reaches out, brushing her arm. She steps closer to him, running a finger through her hair. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re a very beautiful girl-” The brunette looks down and back up. “-but it would be wrong of me to take advantage of you,” he says, nodding and looking at her pointedly. He holds a handful of her hair loosely in his left hand, running his fingers over the curls. “I just, uh, I just respect you too much,” he says, even as he smiles and moves his hand from her hair to rest under her chin. They both lean in, their lips meeting, and they inhale through their noses. They pull away after only a brief kiss. After a moment, the woman places a hand at the back of the his neck and kisses him with more force. The sound of their breathing and occasional groans is audible as their tongues slip into each other’s mouths. The woman moves her hand to the man’s shoulder, then down to his hips._

_As they kiss, tiny patches of the woman’s skin turn into a marbled mixture of black and white, the colorless areas blooming outwards until her entire face could pass for the surface of a wheel of cheese mottled with a fast-growing black mold. She pulls away and opens her eyes, which are now surrounded by deep wrinkles, her irises and pupils covered with a gray film. The professor opens his eyes, and they widen in shock as his smile drops away. “Oh my god,” he whispers. He backwards. From this distance, the woman’s full face is now visible, her skin cracking and splitting on her forehead and cheeks, creases forming chasms in the expanse of her forehead._

_“What?” she asks, innocent as ever. “Don’t you like me anymore?”_

_He steps backwards again, knocking a pile of papers off his desk. He doesn't notices them in the moment. He shuffles behind the protection of the table._

_“Don’t you want me?” the monster asks. She steps closer to him._

_The professor backs against the wall, staring at her with wide eyes, unable to run through the fog that fear has created for him. The creature flickers, and then she apparates in front of him, snarling as she pushes him against the window frame. “Good night, professor. Sleep well,” she whispers. Then, she pushes a hand against his neck and shoves him out the window._

  
_Below, a brunet sporting a smug smile and a gray jumpsuit struts away from the building, his hair brushing against his ears and forehead in the breeze. As he prepares to descend the steps, a loud thud sounds from behind him, a dark mass falling to the ground. He jumps, startled, and stops walking. He turns around and assesses the body lying on the sidewalk. He steps closer to get a better look. A middle aged man is there, the wrinkles around his mouth exaggerated by the dim illumination of the lights left on in the building’s hallway and his gray hair blown back from his face by his fall,lips parted and eyes closed, a pool of blood blossoming around his head and trickling down the steps like melted chocolate._


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY so it has taken me forever to get this chapter up, I know, and I feel bad. It's pretty long though, and I think it's the best chapter yet! Thanks again to my awesome beta, Lizzie. (@Dragones)

**PART TWO**

Sam flipped through his eleventh lore book of the day, humming tiredly and resting his cheek on his fist. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, attempting to block out the loud music blaring from the speaker. He couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted. He supposed he couldn’t remember much because he had to make room for two thousand pages of textbooks in his brain. He turned his head at the obscene chewing noises coming from his bed. Dean sat there, a box of cheap made-to-order gas station food in hand. 

 

“Dude, you mind not eating those on  _ my  _ bed?

 

“No, I don’t mind,” Dean said, shoving another handful into his mouth. He didn’t budge.

 

Sam shook his head and turned back to his book. 

 

“How’s the research going?” Dean asked, flipping through a magazine absentmindedly.

 

“You know how it’s going?” Sam slammed the book shut and looked at Dean pointedly. “Slow!” He gave Dean a tight-lipped smile, although his brother wasn’t looking. “You know how it would go a heck of a lot faster? If I had my computer.” Dean looked up and gave him a fake smile, humming in agreement, then dismissing the idea as he returned to his magazine. Damn him. Sam’s laptop had gone missing just a few days ago, and who was the only person that could’ve taken it? Dean ‘Denial’ Winchester. However, the elder Winchester brother refused to confess to the deed. Sam pushed away the thought and flipped a few pages of the book.“Can you turn that down, please?” Sam asked after a moment, exasperated by the constant distractions that Dean  _ effortlessly  _ supplied.

 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Dean replied, turning the knob on the rickety, old, pastel blue portable radio. The music nearly doubled in volume. Sam turned away and clenched his jaw, then turned his head back to fix his brother with yet another disapproving look.

 

“You know what?” Sam yelled over the music with a frustrated smile. “Maybe, uh, maybe you should just go somewhere for a while, huh?” Being cooped up with his brother up in a hotel room for a few hours was clearly a recipe for a very,  _ very, _ bad day.

 

Dean turned the dial on the radio all the way to the left, the music cutting off with a click. “Hey, I’d love to,” he said, finally turning serious. “That’s a great idea. Unfortunately, my car’s all screwed to hell.” Ah, this again.  _ Someone  _ had let the air out of the Impala’s tires, and Sam’s money clip had been coincidentally found outside of the car that same day. Sam hadn’t been within 10 feet of the car since they’d arrived in town that weekend, (thanks to the impossible case they were on) and the younger Winchester was still perplexed as to how his wallet could have gotten anywhere near the car, but Dean was still convinced that he was the culprit.

 

“Dean, I  _ told  _ you. I have nothing to do-”

 

An insistent knock resounded throughout the room. Sam waited a few moments, hoping that Dean would get the message and answer the door. When his brother simply glanced at the door and then looked back to him cluelessly, Sam reluctantly stood to complete the task himself.

 

He lay his hands on either side of the doorframe and leaned down to look through the peephole. It was something that most wouldn’t bother to do, but when you hunt monsters for a living, you learn to not let maids into your room. Most don’t respond too well to books on demonology or obscure weaponry just laying around. As he’d hoped, the person outside the door was the one they were expecting, and he glanced back at his brother before swinging the door open. “Hey, Bobby.”

 

“Hey, boys,” the older man said, smiling crookedly.

 

“Hey, Bobby!” Dean called from Sam’s bed, finally getting up. Sam closed the door behind their father’s friend and the brothers’ honorary uncle, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder.

 

“It’s good to see you again so soon,” Bobby mused, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

 

“Yeah, uh, thanks for coming,” Sam said, still rattled over his argument with Dean. “Come on in.” He returned to his position on the couch.

 

“Thank  _ God  _ you’re here,” Dean added, shaking the man’s hand. Yeah, maybe they’d actually get something done instead of moaning in frustration over their current case.

 

“So, um… What didn’t you wanna talk to me on the phone about?” Bobby asked.

 

“It’s this job we’re working,” Sam started. “We-” he stopped and laughed. The entire case truly was ridiculous. “We weren’t sure you’d believe us.”

 

“Well, I can believe a lot,” Bobby chuckled.

 

Sam laughed. “No, yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just, we’ve- we’ve never seen anything like it, a-”

 

“Not even close, and we thought we could use some fresh eyes,” Dean added. Seriously, was the constant interrupting necessary?

 

“Well,” Bobby shrugged. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”

 

“Yeah, um, all right, please,” Sam murmured, gesturing to Dean’s bed. Bobby tossed a wrapper off the duvet and sat down. Sam pulled up a squeaky roller chair. “So, it all started when we caught wind of an obit. See, a professor took a nosedive from a fourth story window, only there’s a campus legend that the building’s haunted, so we pre-texted as reporters from the local paper. We met up with a couple of students at some bar in town, and I sat down with them while Dean went to ‘scout out other possible interviewees’. They both knew the professor- they had him for Ethics and Morality, so I asked them why they thought he did it- you know, jumped out the window, as the story goes. The girl told me that he had a tenure, a family, and had published a pretty popular book, but then she made a suggestion. ‘Who’s to say it was suicide?’.  So I asked her what else it could be, and I figured we were finally getting somewhere. She seemed to think I’d know about some old legend from Crawford Hall, and when I explained that I didn’t,  the guy told me there was some old, made-up urban legend about the building, but the girl seemed to believe the story. She told me that about thirty years ago, a girl, a student at the college, was having an affair with one of her professors. He broke it off, and she supposedly jumped out the window and killed herself. She went on to say something about the girl jumping from room 669- something about turning the nine upside down, and getting 666- probably a load of crap, but apparently this girl still haunts the building today, and kills anyone who sees her. Neither of the students knew her name, though, and then they started fighting, so I left to go find Dean.”

 

Sam paused. Now for the best part of the story. “When I finally located Dean, he was sitting at the bar, apparently drinking something called a  _ Purple Nurple. _ I suggested that we ought to go take a look around the professor’s office, but he was like, ‘oh, no, no, no, I can’t right now, because I’ve got some feisty a little wildcat on the hook. I’m about ready to-’ and then I think he tried to sound like a fishing line being pulled in, but just sounded like a zipper being zipped up - ‘reel her in.’ Sure enough, there was some younger woman in stiletto heels, a miniskirt, and fishnet tights. Dean, of course, insisted on introducing me. So then he was bellowing, ‘Starla! Starla, hey’ at the girl standing practically a foot away from him, and introducing me as his ‘shuttle copilot, Major Tom’ or something just as cringe-worthy. After she nearly vomited from her high alcohol consumption-” Sam looked pointedly at Dean who stared back innocently. “Dean starts telling me about how she’s got a  _ sister _ , and then they’re both standing there, raising their eyebrows suggestively, Starla practically draped over Dean-”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dean interrupted Sam’s story telling.

 

“What?” Sam asked. He’d hardly done anything wrong!

 

“Hold on a minute.”

 

“What?”

 

“Come on, dude, that’s not how it happened!” Dean said, as if Sam’s story were something completely outrageous.

 

“No?” Sam asked. “So you never drank a purple nurple?” He glanced at Bobby, who worriedly eyed each of the boys in turn.

 

“Yeah, maybe  _ that _ , but I don’t say things like ‘feisty little wildcat’, and her name wasn’t  _ Starla _ .” 

 

Yes, he  _ did  _ say things like feisty little wildcat, and if the name wasn’t Starla, it was probably an equally obvious attempt at a sexy name. “Then what was it?” Sam asked. He already knew the answer.

 

“I don’t know,” Dean said after a moment. “But she was a classy chick. She was a grad student- anthropology and folklore. We were talking about local ghost stories.”

 

Yeah, right.

 

“So, you know, I met up with this girl at the bar, we each had a shot, and then she was all like ‘my god, you are _attractive!’_ ” Dean continued in an exaggerated, high-pitched voice. Sam rolled his eyes. “I thanked her and tried to re- route her back to our previous conversation, but then she just kept going on and on, _something_ like: ‘oh, sorry- I just- I just can’t even concentrate. It’s like staring… into the sun.’ By this time, her hand was wrapped around the back of my neck and the whole nine yards- Sam, take note, I did not initiate _any of this._ This was _all_ her.” Oh, of course, why would Dean try to get it on with a hot chick who was interested in him? Sam had no idea. “We’re over at the bar, minding our own business, you know, swapping spit, when Sammy here comes over, holding his coat over his shoulder like some douchebag prep school kid and scowling like a suburban soccer mom. He’s all up in my face, almost yelling at me- ‘Dean, what do you think you’re doing?’, and he purses his lips and busts out this popular high school chick stare. So, I asked politely for five more minutes with the young lady. But oh, no! ‘Dean, this is a very serious investigation,’ he blabs as if he’s that really annoying teacher you had in middle school. ‘We don’t have time for any of your blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah! Blah, blah blah blah blah! Blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. _Blah_!’”

 

“Right,” Sam interrupted. “And  _ that’s  _ how it really happened,” he said sarcastically. Dean shrugged. “I don’t sound like that, Dean!” he cried.

 

“That’s what you sound like to me.”

 

Bobby stopped them. “Okay. What’s going on with you two?” The older man was clearly fed up with their bickering.

 

“Nothing, no- it’s nothing,” Sam insisted with a shake of his head. He and Dean hadn’t been getting along too well, but being together so much made that practically inevitable. There was nothing they could do about it.

 

“Come on. You’re bickering like an old married couple.”

 

“No, see, married couples can get divorced,” Dean said. Touché. “Me and him? We’re like, ah… Siamese twins.”

 

Oh, how thoughtful. His brother always made an effort to be politically correct. “It’s  _ conjoined _ twins!” Sam yelled, staring angrily at Dean, who had gotten up to get another beer- of course. Brother’s on your back? Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!

 

“See what I mean?” Dean asked Bobby, as if all this were Sam’s fault.

 

Sam rolled his eyes, but he knew they were being petty. “Look, it-” He let out a breath. This was all becoming a bigger issue than it ever should have been in the first place. “We’ve just been on the road for too long- tight quarters, all that,” he reasoned. Bobby looked back at him, one eyebrow raised beneath the brim of his baseball cap. “Don’t worry about it,” Sam said, sitting back in his chair.

 

“Okay,” Bobby finally relented.

 

Sam shook his head. They needed to get back to the case. “So, anyway, we figured it might be a haunting, so we went to check out the scene of the crime.” He remembered that night at the university with the janitor- the remarkably  _ adorable  _ janitor, but he figured Bobby didn’t need to hear that, so he could leave that  _ particular  _ adjective out. “So we met up with the janitor- told him we were doing some kind of electrical work. He said he’d been working there for six years, so we figured he’d know the place pretty well.” The janitor’s exact words had actually been “I’ve been mopping these floors for six years,” to which Sam had pointedly tried  _ not  _ to catch a glimpse of the outline of his probably-toned arms under the shamefully baggy form of his gray jumpsuit.

 

“Sam?”

 

Oops. “Uh, yeah?” he asked a beat later than would have been normal, turning abruptly back to Bobby.

 

“You gonna keep tellin’ the story or what?”

 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Sam cleared his throat. “So, this guy lets us into this professor’s room.” Oh, he had never even thought to get the janitor’s name.  _ Or phone number, _ a little voice in the back of his mind reminded him. That particular little voice had sure been talking a lot lately…

 

“So we got the EMF meter out- told the guy it was to find wires in the walls.” Sam couldn’t help the pang of guilt that settled in his stomach at the memory of lying to the janitor. There was just something that didn’t feel right about doing so. “He tells us there’s no point in wiring up that room, so we asked him why. Apparently, that was the room of the guy that went out the window and- splat,” Sam said matter-of-factly, flicking the fingers of his hands outwards. The janitor had been pretty matter-of-fact about it, too. Sam couldn’t help but be impressed at how casually the guy talked about death, although it did put Sam off a bit. “The janitor said he had actually been the one to find the guy, so I guess that could make him some sort of a suspect, but that wouldn’t explain everything else,” Sam said. Hopefully that stood as a passable reason to not douse the guy with holy water- Sam assumed that wouldn’t be the best second impression. Although, admittedly, water dripping from the janitor’s hair and his jumpsuit clinging to his physique  _ did  _ sound more than a little appealing…

 

Sam forced his mind away from  _ that  _ mental image before Bobby noticed him zoning out again. “The janitor”- and geez, did Sam hate having to call him that- “said he didn’t see the fall, though, but he  _ did  _ see the professor going upstairs with someone earlier that night.” Sam smirked. “Dean comes over, his cheeks stuffed with some kind of… chocolate candy thing he found on a table in the corner, and he’s chewing, and you can just see the chocolate mush on his tongue, and he’s all like, ‘Who was he with?’” Sam said, mimicking Dean by closing his lips nearly all the way and lowering his voice in an attempt to lower his intelligence to that of his brother’s- something that would doom them all.

 

“Aw, come on! I ate one, maybe two!” Dean objected defensively.

 

Sam chuckled. Liar. “Just let me tell it, okay?” Dean rolled his eyes and looked away. “So apparently the professor was with a young woman. He said he’d told the cops about her, but they never found her or even figured out who she was. Apparently, he hadn’t even seen the girl leave the building,” Sam said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Apparently... he hadn’t even seen this particular girl before.” Bobby nodded and frowned from under his baseball cap. “But he said the professor brought a lot of girls up to his office,”- and supposedly got ‘more ass than a toilet seat’. Man, the guy’s cute little smirk just made everything he said even  _ more _ memorable. “I asked him about room 669, and he said it didn’t exist, so that’s definitely a load of baloney.”

 

“Well, duh!” Bobby exclaimed, rolling his eyes. He pushed himself off the bed to pace near the window. Sam caught an “idjit” muttered under his breath.

 

Sam stood up and Dean followed. “Anyways, we came back here to the hotel that night. We didn’t find any traces of EMF in the building. We figured we’d look at the history of the building, find out if there were any coeds there who- you know- pressed the self-destruct button, since the girl the professor was with that night was our best lead. I opened my laptop, but it was frozen- on ‘bustyasianbeauties.com’.” Sam glared at Dean who pouted in return. “Ahem- Dean. Which was when I asked him not to touch my  _ stuff  _ anymore-”

 

“But did you dig up anything about the building- or on the suicidal coed?” Bobby asked. 

 

“No. History’s clean,” Sam admitted. They’d had to go to the library to use a computer for the first time in years, but the effort was useless when school’s record was devoid of any fatalities other than the recent ones.

 

“Then it’s not a haunting.”

 

“Maybe not. Tell you the truth, we’re not really sure,” Dean interjected.

 

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

 

“Well, it’s weird,” Sam said.

 

“What’s weird?” Bobby asked. Sam had to admit that his previous statement held practically no meaning for any of them- they hunted monsters for a living-  _ everything  _ was weird.

 

“This next part… we, uh… we didn’t see it happen ourselves, exactly, but… it’s pretty friggin’ weird, even for us,” Dean explained. The brothers were both dreading the story they had to tell next. Bobby nodded at them to go on. “Well, ah… apparently this kid was walking around the campus at night and got abducted- by aliens,” Dean forced out. Sam suddenly noticed that his shoes were tied very interestingly that day.

 

“Aliens?” Bobby asked in disbelief.

 

“Yeah,” Sam said.

 

This time, louder: “Aliens?!”

 

“Yeah,” Dean said. 

 

“Look, even if they  _ are  _ real, they’re sure as hell not comin’ to Earth and swipin’ people,” Bobby argued.

 

“Hey, believe me, we know,” Dean said. What the poor kid had told them, though… some of that you just couldn’t make up.

 

“My whole life I’ve never found evidence of an honest-to-God abduction. It’s all just cranks and pranks,” Bobby continued.  _ Yes, because Bobby Singer was the ultimate source of knowledge on such things- the God of the supernatural _ , Sam couldn’t help but think to himself. He loved Bobby, but the man was more stubborn than a heavy duty Band-Aid caught in a patch of leg hair. 

 

Sam leaned his shoulder against the wall and sighed. “Yeah, that’s what we thought, but we figured we’d at least talk to the guy,” he shrugged, walking back to stand next to his chair. “Now, the kid was downing shots as he spoke, so we’re trying to take this all with a grain of salt, but… this is pretty weird, even for that.” Bobby squinted at him. “Dean starts by suggesting that he give the purple nurples a shot-” Dean held out his arms with a disbelieving look on his face, but no, Sam would never give this joke up. It was too good to resist. He stifled a chuckle and continued. “The kid’s name was Curtis. We asked him what happened, but he wasn’t really keen on talking, saying that we wouldn’t believe him- that nobody believed him.”

 

Bobby gave him a disgusted look. “Well, duh! Aliens  _ aren’t re- _ ”

 

“Bobby,” Dean interrupted, giving the older man a look that Sam thought was a pathetic attempt at saying  _ shut up and sit down _ without words.

 

“Anyways, we got the kid to talk- told him it was off the record, since we were using the journalist cover. Apparently, he was walking through the courtyard to his dorm at night, saw some bright lights, blacked out, woke up, and didn’t know where he was. He said they did tests on him, and uh…” Sam trailed off and winced. “They probed him.” He didn’t look at Bobby. “Apparently they probed him a  _ lot _ .” He cleared his throat and flopped back onto the couch. Dean perched next to him on the arm of the sofa.  “And, ah, he says they made him… slow dance.” He made a point of noticing an odd stain in the carpet at that point. It was shaped vaguely like an ice cream cone.

 

“You guys are exaggerating again, huh?” Bobby asked, surprisingly not seeming to be particularly upset at the brothers for being ‘idjits’.

 

“No,” Sam and Dean said in unison.

 

“Then this frat boy’s just nuts!” Bobby cried.

 

“We’re not so sure,” Dean started. “See, we visited the school a few days later, and there was a big, shallow crater in the school’s courtyard. Sam said he was sure it was made by some kind of jet engine. A… saucer shaped jet engine.” He shrugged. “We both thought it was impossible-  _ still  _ think it’s impossible, but it was there. Sam figured there was probably a connection between the death of the professor and this whole alien thing, but I don’t think so. I mean, a haunting  _ and  _ aliens? Come on.” Sam pursed his lips to keep from arguing back. Coincidences like that didn’t just happen. “Sam hasn’t got any ideas of what the connection could be-” Sam bit the inside of his cheek. Disagreement was one thing, but this was bordering on insult. It wasn’t like Dean was offering any explanation, either! “But what could we do? So, we just kept on digging. We met up with another student from the high school, one who knew Curtis- actually lived in the same frat house as he did. He didn’t seem to believe this whole alien thing, either.” Bobby nodded and smiled slightly. Dean continued. “So, Sam’s trying to comfort him: ‘Look man, I- I know this all has to be so hard,’” he quoted in a high-pitched voice.” Sam clenched his jaw and stared at Dean. “And the poor kid’s like, ‘oh, no, no, not so much,’ but Sam practically hug-attacks him-”

 

“Dean!”

 

“‘But I want you to know… I’m here for you,” Dean said, resuming his use of a high-pitch.

 

“ _ Dean! _ ”

 

“‘You brave little little soldier! I acknowledge your pain.” Dean mimicked, pouting his bottom lip out and widening his eyes. “‘Come here,’” Dean finished. “So, Sam moose-hugs the kid and he  _ cries _ , holding the kid’s face in his hands. ‘You’re too precious for this world,’ Dean returned to his very offensive imitation of Sam, practically bawling the words.

 

“I never said that!” Sam cried in defense.

 

“You’re  _ always _ sayin’ pansy stuff like that.”

 

Bobby’s eyes flicked between the two boys, a hand resting against his chin, clearly fed up with their squabbling. Sam looked at him and shook his head.

 

Dean continued. “Anyways, after the kid managed to detach Sam from his shoulders, oversized limpet that he is, he told us that he thought that Curtis had it coming, whatever it was that actually happened to him. I asked him why, and he said Curtis was his fraternity’s Pledge Master, and he put the pledge class through hell this year. Kid said he got off on it, so he was getting a taste of his own medicine, but we don’t know how that connects to anything else.” Dean switched to a teaseful tone. “Sammy turns to me, pouting over the poor kid and all he’s been through-”

 

“Shut _ up _ !”

 

Dean rolled his eyes and stood up, moving to sit at the rickety table across the room. Sam followed. “Anyways, we got back to the motel later that night, and I figured that since the frat guy and the professor were both total  _ dicks _ , there was at least a slight connection there.” He sighed. “Anyways, that’s when Sam opens his bag, and notices that his laptop is missing.” Sam pursed his lips and breathed in deeply. “He asked me where it was, I told him I didn’t know, I start trying to explain how the punishments seem to be kind of a poetic karma kind of thing- you know, focusing on the case- and  _ Sam  _ immediately asks me where  _ I  _ hid his computer! He says nobody else could have taken it, and yeah, fair point. Why the hell would I take his laptop, though? I say he lost it. Then, he goes off all like, ‘you know, I put up with a lot from you! Your dirty socks in the sink! Your food in the fridge!’ Which- by the way, is where food is  _ supposed  _ to go. Apparently, my food is ‘Darwinism’.” Dean shook his head. “He asked me how I’d feel if he messed with the Impala, and damn, I’d kill him if he so much as sat in the driver’s seat, but… come on. It’s a couple hundred dollar laptop, not a several thousand dollar car!”

 

“Did you take his computer?” Bobby asked, rounding on Dean.

 

“Serves him right, but no,” Dean shrugged. He pulled his beer to his mouth.

 

“Well,  _ I  _ didn’t lose it,” Sam shot back. “‘Cause  _ I  _ don’t lose things!”

 

“Oh, that’s right, ‘cause he’s Mr. Perfect,” Dean said, pointing to Sam. Well, Sam wished he was.

 

“Okay, okay, why don’t you just tell me what happened next?” Bobby asked.

 

“There was one more victim,” Dean started.

 

“Right, now we- now we didn’t see this one ourselves, either. We kind of put it together from the evidence,” Sam interrupted. “But this guy- he was a… he was a research scientist- animal testing.”

 

“Yeah, you know, a dick- which fits the pattern,” Dean interjected. “It sounds like the guy was walking outside the college late at night, and for some reason, he decided to stick his hand down a storm drain. The Feds found a gold watch in the bottom of the drain- probably trying to take the thing for himself. Anyways, as he reached down, something tore him up pretty bad- pulled him in and mauled him. Blood splattered on every surface within a 10 foot radius. The cops didn’t release the cause of death because they had no clue what the cause was.”

 

Bobby frowned, jutting his lower lip out.

 

“So, we checked it out ourselves,” Sam said. “We couldn’t get into the mortuary, but that was no surprise- didn’t want guys checking out their unsolved deaths. We broke in through a window that night-  stuck a knife under the window and turned the lock from the outside. We got in easy and found the remains without a problem, but when we found them…” He glanced at Dean. “There wasn’t much left. What looked like one of the guy’s calves was all that was really intact. The files said he worked at Crawford Hall- the same place that the professor worked-”

 

“And where alien-boy got abducted,” Dean interrupted.

 

“Yeah,” Sam continued. “Anyways, Dean grabbed a big magnifying glass to get a closer look at the corpse-”

 

“If you could call it a corpse,” Dean contributed.

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “I thought I saw something in the mangled tissue. We found what looked like a… ah… a belly scale.” He swallowed. “From an alligator- in the sewer.” He looked up at Bobby, who seemed more pensive than angry at the boys for being ‘idjits’. “Anyways, that was when we decided to call you- figured you might have run into something like this before.” Dean shook his head.

 

“We decided to search the sewer anyway, so we split up, each taking one end of campus.”

 

“Did you find anything?” Bobby asked.

 

“Yeah, I found something- just not in the sewer,” Dean replied with a clenched jaw. He looked at Sam. “After I got  _ out _ of the sewer, I went to my car to find that  _ somebody  _ had let the air out of all the tires,” he said with a suspicious glare directed towards Sam, indicating just who he thought that  _ somebody _ was. “What did I find outside the car?” He paused for dramatic effect and looked to Bobby. “A money clip with the initials S.W. on it.” Sam frowned and shook his head. He had not let the air out of Dean’s tires! If anyone knew so, Bobby did. “I went back to the motel, and Sam played innocent, of course. I told him letting the air out of the tires would bend the rims, and he denied ever going near the car,” Dean said. “I showed him the money clip, he still didn’t confess, and I kept the money. Emotional reparations, you understand,” he said to Bobby. Sam thought Bobby looked more incredulous than understanding. “He goes off about how he’s had it ‘up to here’ with me and grabs for the money. We end up fightin’ over it on the damn bed,” he finished with a disgusted glance to Sam. Right, because  _ he  _ was the childish one.

 

“Okay, I’ve heard enough!” Bobby interjected.

 

“Anyway, you showed up about an hour after that,” Dean finished.

 

“I’m surprised at you two. I really am,” Bobby said like a reprimanding father. Sam studied the creases of his knuckles. “Sam, first off, Dean did not steal your computer.” Yeah, right.

 

“But, I-”

 

“Shhhh!” Bobby held up a hand. “And Dean, Sam did not touch your car.”

 

“Yeah!” Sam said.

 

“And if you two bothered to pull your heads out of your asses, it all woulda been pretty clear.”

 

“What?” Dean asked.

 

“What you’re dealin’ with!” So Bobby did know what this was. Sam had told Dean he would!

 

He looked up. Bobby was looking them expectantly. “Uh..” Sam frowned and hoped desperately that he would have a revelation within the next few moments.

 

“Got nothin’,” Dean admitted.

 

“Me neither,” Sam followed.

 

“You’ve got a Trickster on your hands,” Bobby said matter-of-factly.

 

Dean snapped and grinned, pointing to Bobby. “That’s what I thought!” he said.

 

“What?!” Sam cried. “No, you didn-”

 

“I gotta tell ya,” Bobby interrupted. “ _ You guys  _ were the biggest clue.”

 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

 

“These things create chaos and mischief as easy as breathin’, and it’s got you  _ so _ turned around and at each other’s throats- you can’t even think straight!” Bobby explained. He sounded disappointed.

 

“The laptop,” Sam realised.

 

“The tires,” Dean muttered.

 

Bobby nodded.“It knows you’re on to him, and it’s been playin’ you like fiddles.”

 

Bobby was right. Sam didn’t know how he hadn’t come up with the idea of something messing with him and Dean before- in retrospect, it was obvious.

 

“So what is- wh- wh- wh- spirit? Demon?” Dean asked, obviously quite clueless despite his earlier claim that he had even heard of a Trickster. “What?”

 

“Well…” Bobby glanced away. “More like demigods, really. There’s Loki in Scandinavia; there’s Anansi in West Africa- dozen’s of ‘em. They’re immortal, and they can create things outta thin air- things as real as you an’ me- make ‘em vanish just as quick.” 

 

“You mean like an… angry spirit, or an alien, or an alligator,” Dean said. Of course. Why hadn’t they seen it before?”

 

“The victims fit the image, too,” Bobby said. “Tricksters target the high and the mighty. Knock ‘em down a peg- usually with a sense o’ humor- deadly pranks, things like that.”

 

“Bobby, what do these things look like?” Dean asked. Sam had already gotten there- there had been no EMF, no sulfur, no nothing. What the hell were they supposed to be looking for?

 

Bobby shrugged. “Lots of things, but human, mostly.” Awesome. They were looking for a sewing needle in a repurposed 4-Pound tin of Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies.

 

“And what human do we know that’s been at ground zero this whole time?” Dean asked, leaning over the table speculatively.

  
Sam frowned, and his mind whirred. They’d only talked to one person who could’ve possibly had any-  _ oh _ . His face relaxed-  _ the janitor _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! The final part of this episode is in progress!


	3. UPDATE- FIC IS BEING ABANDONED

Hey everyone, I've recently learned that there could be some copyright issues with this fic since so much of its story comes from the show. I am not currently planning to take the fic down, but I will not be continuing it. Thanks so much for reading and for dealing with my lack of updates for this long (it's been almost a year now!). I'm really sorry, but I can't continue this knowing there may be legal issues. You all have provided amazing support for me. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.


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